Respect for People.

 (Until the Lunch Arrives) 

I've spent more than 40 years working in manufacturing businesses, and I've heard just about every variation of the phrase "Our people are our greatest asset." 

I've seen it in annual reports, on reception walls, in corporate values statements and in beautifully produced presentations about organisational culture. 

I've also seen how quickly those sentiments evaporate when somebody important needs a sandwich. 

Let me tell you two stories. 

Story One: The Executive Buffet 

Some years ago, I was delivering a six-month development programme for a client's operational excellence team. 

These were relatively inexperienced people, learning the principles and practical application of Lean, the Theory of Constraints and operational improvement. 

The programme combined classroom learning with practical work on the factory floor. We needed somewhere to teach, somewhere to discuss what we'd discovered, and easy access to the operations we were studying. 

The client had provided a suitable training room. It was part of a larger conference facility with concertina partitions that allowed three smaller rooms to become one large room. 

All very convenient and a great venue from a consultant’s viewpoint. 

That was, until Thursday morning. 

We arrived for the fourth day of a five-day course to discover that our room had disappeared. 

The partitions had been moved, and our training room had been absorbed into the adjoining conference room. 

Why? 

The senior leadership team was holding its monthly meeting and needed more space. 

Not for additional participants. 

Not for some critical business discussion. 

For the buffet lunch. 

Apparently, at least in my jaundiced view, the senior leadership team couldn't be expected to walk somewhere else for their sandwiches. 

So the people being trained to improve the business were displaced to accommodate the catering arrangements of the people running it. 

We eventually found a meeting room in a nearby hotel. 

That cost another £150, disrupted the programme and complicated our movement between the classroom and the factory floor. 

But the £150 wasn't the problem. 

The problem was the message. 

A team of young, impressionable people who were developing their capability to improve the organisation, had just discovered that their work was less important than the convenience of the senior management team's lunch. 

And nobody in authority thought that was worth challenging. 

I wonder how many of those same executives had previously stood in front of employees and talked about respect, empowerment and developing people. 

Probably all of them. 

Story Two: The Sandwich Exchange 

You wouldn’t think that lightning strikes twice – or sandwiches – but it can. And does. 

Another client. Another workshop. 

This time I was working with about a dozen team leaders and supervisors from the production lines. 

As we were getting started, a young woman from administration popped her head around the door. 

"Lunches for your guys are in the kitchen Davie. We've also got some customers visiting today, and their lunches are clearly marked. Make sure you get the right ones!" 

Yep, fair enough. 

A little later, I wandered into the kitchen to have a look. 

And there they were. 

Two collections of sandwiches. 

The first was a magnificent assortment of generously filled sandwiches, clearly intended for the visiting customers. 

The second looked like the sort of thing you might encounter at a particularly low-budget funeral. 

Guess which ones were for the team leaders? 

Now, don't misunderstand me. 

Customers are important. Without customers, we don't have much of a business – or any business. 

But the people in my workshop were the people who actually made the products those customers bought. 

They added value every day. 

They were giving up their time to learn how to improve the business. 

And somebody had decided, without giving it much thought, that they deserved the cheap sandwiches. 

My mum brought me up to do the right thing. 

So I did what any responsible, mature management consultant would do. 

I switched the labels. 

Then, displaying what I like to think was admirable tactical foresight, I arranged for my team to take lunch slightly early. 

By the time anybody noticed, the evidence had disappeared. 

My team thoroughly enjoyed their lunch. 

The visiting customers, who probably hadn't expected so much as a biscuit, received sandwiches. 

Nobody complained. Well, not to me. 

Result! 

Now, before anyone suggests that swapping sandwich labels isn't exactly textbook corporate governance, I'll concede the point. 

But I would do it again. 

Because the alternative bothered me considerably more. 

What If They Had Seen the Labels? 

Here's the question I've often thought about since. 

What if one of those team leaders had walked into the kitchen before I had switched the labels? 

What would they have concluded? 

Not necessarily that the company was deliberately disrespecting them, but maybe something more subtle, and perhaps more damaging. 

That when somebody had to decide who deserved the better lunch, the answer wasn't them. 

Nobody needed to say it - the funeral sandwiches had already delivered the message. 

And that's the thing about organisational culture. 

People notice. 

• They notice who gets listened to. 

• They notice whose time is protected and whose time is treated as expendable. 

• They notice whether managers make the effort to remove obstacles or simply expect everyone else to work around them. 

• They notice who gets the good sandwiches. 

Respect Isn't a Programme 

I've encountered plenty of businesses with elaborate employee engagement initiatives, leadership development programmes and carefully worded commitments to respect for people. 

Some are excellent. 

But respect isn't established by launching a programme. 

It's demonstrated in the thousands of ordinary decisions made throughout the working day. 

• The manager who makes time to listen. 

• The director who challenges an unreasonable demand. 

• The supervisor who makes sure their team has what it needs. 

• The executive who recognises that their convenience isn't automatically more important than somebody else's work. 

These things rarely appear on a performance dashboard. In fact, they never appear on a dash or a deck. 

They don't require a new management framework. 

And they certainly don't need a consultant to explain them. 

They require people to think about the consequences of their decisions, particularly for those who have the least influence over them. 

In the first story, people were inconvenienced so that senior managers wouldn't be. 

In the second, someone had allocated hospitality according to organisational status without considering what that might communicate. 

To be fair, neither incident was a major operational crisis - but both revealed something about the organisation. 

And that's why small things matter. 

We spend enormous amounts of time discussing strategy, leadership, engagement and organisational culture. 

Yet sometimes the most revealing evidence is sitting on a plate in the kitchen. 

If you really want to understand whether an organisation respects its people, don't start with the values statement. 

Watch what happens when lunch arrives.